There is a need to distribute functional blocks such as integrated circuit chips across large area substrates, such as a roll-to-roll substrate or a plurality of panel substrates where the active circuitry such as the functional blocks only occupies a small fraction of the substrate. Thus it may be advantageous to process the functional blocks in a different substrate and then transfer the completed functional blocks to the final substrates. Prior arts include processes in which the functional blocks are deposited into a substrate using a pick-and-place or a fluidic-self assembly process.
The fluidic self assembly process employs fluid transport to assemble functional blocks on a substrate. The fluidic self assembly process mixes the functional blocks in a fluid and then dispenses the mixture over the surface of the receiving substrate where the functional blocks randomly align onto receptor regions.
An exemplary pick and place process uses a human or robot arm to pick each functional block and place it into its corresponding location in the assembly substrate. The pick and place process is usually serial, placing one functional block at a time, and is thus slow for numerous devices such as RFID devices or pixels of large arrays, and difficult for very small devices because the pick and place unit is hard to make in a small size.
Pick and place machines are not ideally suited to this type of production, because of speed limitations as well as the fact that the components are in many cases preferably small (less than a few hundred micrometers on a side, and more preferably less than 100 micrometers on a side). In addition, one of the advantages of pick and place technology, which is the ability to place a component anywhere, in any orientation, is less useful when the product has a very regular geometry and is being made in extremely high volume (millions to billions per year, or even more). There is accordingly a need for machines which can satisfy these needs.